


Play to Your Strengths

by joisbishmyoga



Series: A Lick of Sense [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hermione Granger is smarter than you, books and cleverness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6854791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Books and cleverness, and Gryffindor determination... and a source of information Voldemort absolutely DOES NOT have, guaranteed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play to Your Strengths

**Author's Note:**

> I keep thinking Hermione's done with me, but no. She's getting scarier with each new idea.

"Hey, Harry?"  Hermione poked her head into the small bay window where Harry was pretending to do his homework, the Golden Egg at his elbow and clearly taking up more of his attention.  "Can I borrow the Map for a bit?"  
  
"Mmhm, sure Hermione," Harry replied distractedly.  
  
"Thanks!"  
  
  
-0-0-0  
  
  
There were empty classrooms and long-forgotten galleries by the score in Hogwarts, and while a lot of them tended to be occupied by couples early in the evening  -- not necessarily couples known to be dating, and once Hermione had come across a very educational trio (Alohamora wasn't really the most suitable charm to read about in first year, not in Hogwarts) --  those rooms were the most comfortable and well-known to the students.  However, the rooms without couches, or stored bedding, or wide windowsills, or desks of convenient height... the empty galleries with nothing but uncomfortably overwrought architecture and frescoes whose flaking paint had broken the magic setting life into ancient faces...  
  
Hermione had found many more of those after the Polyjuice fiasco in second year.  
  
Wind whistled cold and plantive through the vaulted ceiling of a random gallery, far above Hermione's head, far above the pitted and scored flagstone under her knees where she'd spread the map open.  
  
She touched her wand delicately to the center of the blank parchment.  "I am Hermione Granger," she informed it quietly.  "I'm best friends with Harry Potter, the son of Prongs.  We're just fourth years, and his life is in danger.  I can't swear I'm up to no good... saving his life, our lives, is the most good I can think of.  Please... for Prongs' son, Padfoot's godson, Moony's student... Wormtail's life debt."  Bitter as it was, she had that, if she couldn't get the Map to cooperate the nice way.  "Please help us."  
  
Under her wand, black ink bloomed.  
  
 _Little Alice fell_  
 _d_  
 _o_  
 _w_  
 _n_  
 _the hOle,_  
 _bumped her head_  
  
What the...?  Hermione knew that phrase, even the writing, but it was...  
  
Oh.  
  
"And bruised her soul," Hermione murmured, finishing the quote.  She swallowed.  "... Thank you for the warning, but I can't just... I have to do something, and."  The faint light at the tip of her wand pulsed, seeping into the page.  "All I'm good at is books and cleverness, you see.  Completely lose my head in a fight.  So I have to play to my strengths, and... well.  If you have information, you're one of them."  
  
The ink ran into slow, thoughtful swirls.  Then...  
  
 _We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school._   
  
... That was a second Muggle quote.  This thing was testing her.  A pureblood might know Alice in Wonderland, maybe.  It was old enough.  But something from the 1960s, something that couldn't be packed into luggage and brought to Hogwarts...  "You can't give me love and rhetoric without the blood.  Blood is... compulsory."  She finished slowly, "They're all blood, you see."  
  
She lifted her wand away from the parchment, Transfigured a sharp pin from her shoelace, and jabbed her left ring finger with it.  The magic finger, the nameless one, the one for love and wedding rings... even if she wasn't interested in Harry like that, the symbolism for bond-of-family should be close enough.  
  
A line of fresh blood-red appeared in the swirling ink, and whirled into the second paragraph bubbling up on the Map, the vibrant color catching her eye first.  
  
 _This Map is NOT a Horcrux._  
  
  
-0-0-0  
  
  
 _Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs Present:_  
 _The Marauder's Manual of Forbidden Magicks, As Studied, Used or Discarded, And Obliterated From The Memory of:_  
 _Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs._  
  
 _"The Moste Efficient of Darkest Magicks is the Creating of a Horcruxe."  This Map is NOT a Horcrux._  
 _(And Dark Magic is seriously gross.  Don't study it if you want to keep your dinner down.)_  
  
 _\- Upon the Difference between a Piece of Soul and the Reflection Thereof_  
 _\- Upon the Difference between Dark Arts, Blood Magic, and Forbidden Magic_  
 _\- It Burns Us, Precious!  The Dangers of Light Magic_  
 _\- Time and Effort: Why the Map Works and Old Vol-au-Vent is a Puffed-Up Airhead_  
 _\- Mooning the Future: Girl Power and way too much babbling about a certain lady, shut Prongs up for this part..._  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The only way this could be scarier in its implications is if Hermione got the twins in on it, like I originally thought she was.  
> The very last item on the table of contents is "the Brain Bleach Spell (for when you absolutely, positively, cannot risk someone overcoming Obliviate on yourself)".


End file.
